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<P><B><FONT FACE="Arial"><FONT SIZE=+3>Introduction</FONT></FONT></B>
<P><SPAN lang="EN-GB">
<BR><FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework)
is a software framework fully implemented in Java language. It simplifies
the implementation of multi-agent systems through a middle-ware that claims
to comply with the FIPA specifications and through a set of tools that
supports the debugging and deployment phase. The agent platform can be
distributed across machines (which not even need to share the same OS)
and the configuration can be controlled via a remote GUI. The configuration
can be even changed at run-time by moving agents from one machine to another
one, as and when required. The only system requirement is the Java Run
Time version 1.4 or later.</FONT>
<BR>
  <FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">The communication architecture offers flexible 
  and efficient messaging, where JADE creates and manages a queue of incoming 
  ACL messages, private to each agent; agents can access their queue via a combination 
  of several modes: blocking, polling, timeout and pattern matching based. The 
  full FIPA communication model has been implemented and its components have been 
  clearly distincted and fully integrated: interaction protocols, envelope, ACL, 
  content languages, encoding schemes, ontologies and, finally, transport protocols. 
  The transport mechanism, in particular, is like a chameleon because it adapts 
  to each situation, by transparently choosing the best available protocol. Java 
  RMI, event-notification, HTTP and IIOP are currently used, but more protocols 
  can be easily added. Most of the interaction protocols defined by FIPA are already 
  available and can be instantiated after defining the application-dependent behaviour 
  of each state of the protocol. SL and agent management ontology have been implemented 
  already, as well as the support for user-defined content languages and ontologies 
  that can be implemented, registered with agents, and automatically used by the 
  framework. JADE has also been integrated with JESS, a Java shell of CLIPS, in 
  order to exploit its reasoning capabilities.</FONT> <BR>
  <FONT FACE="Arial,Helvetica">JADE is being used by a number of companies and 
  academic groups, both members and non-members of FIPA, such as BT, CNET, NHK, 
  Imperial College, IRST, KPN, University of Helsinky, INRIA, ATOS and many others. 
  It has been recently made available under Open Source License. Further details 
  and documentation can be found at http://jade.tilab.com/.</FONT></SPAN> <BR>
  &nbsp;
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<CENTER><FONT FACE="Arial"><FONT SIZE=-1><A HREF="http://jade.cselt.it/">JADE</A>
is a trademark of
<A HREF="http://www.cselt.it">CSELT</A>. <A HREF="http://jade.cselt.it/">JADE</A>
has been developed jointly by <A HREF="http://www.cselt.it">CSELT</A> and
the <A HREF="http://www.ce.unipr.it">Computer Engineering Group</A> of
the <A HREF="http://www.unipr.it">University of Parma</A></FONT></FONT></center>

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